The chains of death and freedom.

The hum of emptiness embedded itself in my bones. It was not a sound, it was the absence of all sound, a low, perpetual tone that was more terrifying than any roar. It was the echo of what was gone. Of the one that was gone forever for saving Noelia. For saving us.

"Break your chains."

The hooded man's words were not a memory; they were a ghost burned into my cornea, a mantra beating in unison with the throbbing pain in my side. I was not a hero. I was not a chosen one. I was a bridge between two shitty worlds, and in both I was just as weak, just as paralyzed.

But he... he had moved. And now he no longer existed.

...

I looked at Ikel. He was bleeding, his face contorted with pain and helplessness. The fiery flames in his hands that were so characteristic of him were beginning to fade.

I looked at Noelia. The fury in her eyes was beginning to subside, replaced by something worse, pure, raw panic. The elemental runes that danced around her body flickered like emergency lights, losing intensity, sputtering erratically. She was spent. Empty.

The creature then rose up, completely ignoring the wall of electrified earth that Noelia had created moments before. It was not an animal. It was a bug from the digital world, a tentacled bug that regenerated from our damage, that fed on our despair. Its tentacles tightened, and a dozen black spears, sharp and distortion-laden, rose in a deadly fan. They were aimed at Noelia.

Time did not slow down. It accelerated, becoming all sharp, crystalline, horrible.

I saw the thicker main tentacle, twisting like a nightmarish python, propel itself toward her with the speed of a missile. I saw Noelia's eyes widen, not with fear, but with instant resignation. She knew it. I couldn't dodge it.

—  NOELIA! — The scream was not mine. It was saitras. And in that instant, he ceased to be a mysterious silhouette. He let go of his black hood that distinguished him wherever he went. And with a gesture that seemed to tear at her soul, she created concentric waves of dark violet light, heavy, dense, materialized between her and death. A gravitational field. The tentacle struck and sank into it, slowing to unreality, as if moving through cosmic tar.

It was the instant he needed. He sacrificed himself for that instant. He pounced, not with the grace of a hero of legend, but with the brutal clumsiness of one who gives all he has left. He pushed her. He saved her.

And the price sounded wet and crunchy. The second tentacle, the stealthy one, the one we had all overlooked, pierced it from side to side.

The words would not come out of my mouth, they remained splintered in my chest.

It fell. Not gracefully. He fell like a dead weight, hitting the ground with a dull impact that I felt in my gut, right in front of me. It was no longer him. It was a glitch in the shape of a man. His body was blurring, colors fading into a frightening gray static. He coughed, and every cough was a flicker in his form, a high-pitched jamming sound that drilled my ears.

—  No...there...is...time...—   he managed to mumble. His voice was no longer filtered. It was weak, broken, terribly human. A hand, now semi-transparent, clutched the floor. I saw his fingers break down into loose pixels that vanished into thin air.

I wanted to crawl towards him. I wanted to say something to him, to scream at him, something. An impulse born of a horror so deep it had no name. But my muscles were leaden. Like in the high school hallway. Like at home. Like always. Fear was a heavier slab than the whole Altverse world on top of my will. I could only watch. Paralyzed. Useless.

He turned his head towards me. — Listen... — A static-laden, but clear, imperative whisper. —  You're not a... hero... Or a chosen one. But you can... improve. Even if it's... one step at a time... Do it. —

— Break... your chains... — 

His head, with an effort that seemed to consume the last lines of code that kept him anchored to existence, turned to Noelia. She was still struggling, but her movements were clumsy, her runes flickering erratically, hesitantly. The strength was leaving her.

— Help her...—  His voice broke into a shrill beep, a system failure. — She... suffers... more... than she shows. She... hides... with force su.... Don't... let... her... fall... alone. —

The glitch advanced upon him like a voracious ink stain, consuming him from the fatal wound outward. His silhouette began to fragment, breaking off in pieces of darkness and erratic light that dissolved into the air like digital smoke — To tell you the truth... I don't know what it is... she sees in you but... MOVE! — he suddenly roared. It was a sound that came not from his throat, but from his core, a last burst of pure will against the corruption that devoured him. — EVEN IF YOU'RE AFRAID! EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU CAN'T! MOVE, DAMMIT! —

The scream was drowned out by a thunderous clang of twisted metal and an explosion of pure, blinding white static.

And then...

It was erased.

It was no ordinary death. There was no golden flash, no particles of reconnection. It was not an I will return. It was a delete. Line by line of its code, turned into a chaotic, noisy swirl of meaningless gray and black pixels. Until there was nothing left. Absolutely nothing.

A vacuum patch.

Darker than the deepest night of the Altverse, colder than interstellar game space. A humming emptiness. A low-frequency hum that echoed in my teeth, in my skull, and felt like an ice dagger stabbing into my soul. That death was not a restart. It was a definitive erasure. Here and there. I had not only violated the event; I had violated the rules of existence.

A brief, unbearable silence. Broken only by the hum of the void, the sickening gurgle of the black puddle, and the gasps of Ikel and Noelia. The glitch creature rose on its tentacles, undulating with deliberate slowness, as if savoring its triumph, our terror, and the void it had created.

His next roar was not sound; it was a sonic infection, a promise of more erasures that shook the ground beneath my hands.

I gritted my teeth until I felt like the polygons in my jaw might burst. Fear was a black ocean inside me. The same ocean that drowned me in high school, at home, in bed before crossing over. My heart hammered against my virtual ribs, a frantic drum announcing the end. The pain in my side, the static wound, pricked like electric ice needles.

"Break your chain."

Saitras final command echoed not only in my ears, but also in the void I had left. It was not a suggestion. It was a testament.

I looked at the absolute emptiness where he was. The price of bravery.

I looked at Ikel, limping, defeated, his vital essence glowing ominously. The price of endurance.

I looked at Noelia, her fury now replaced by naked panic, her magical defenses failing. The price of hiding the pain.

I saw the creature, that giant bug, that tentacled virus. The embodiment of everything that wanted to erase me.

And something snapped.

It wasn't bravery. It was rage. Rage against fear. Rage against paralysis. Rage against the idea that he had given everything for us, for me, and I was going to be erased just the same, without having taken a single step forward, in any of my worlds. Without having broken anything.

Y moves me.

It was not heroic. It was agony. It was a rebellion of every fiber of my being against the tyranny of panic. I pushed myself up with my arms, shaking like leaves in a storm. My legs refused, buckling under the weight of a thousand past paralyses. But I forced them. I screamed at them from the inside. I showed them the emptiness. I got down on my knees. Every muscle screamed, burning with the effort. I grabbed my weapon, a simple dagger, it was ridiculous and pathetic compared to the abomination before me. I knew it wouldn't make a difference. I knew I would probably die. Or I would be obliterated.

But as I looked at that dreadful emptiness, that gaping wound in reality, that final proof that nothing was safe... And as I heard the echo of Saitras' last cry — MOVE! — burning in my mind as if it were a new code, an anti-fear program...

I stood up. Staggering like a newborn in the middle of a hurricane. Taking a step forward. A single step. Trembling. Insignificant.

But it was my step. My first. The broken link. The movement in the direction of fear, not away from it.

He was no longer standing still.